Business organizations typically provide health insurance for their employees. This health insurance is typically a group health insurance policy. To apply for group health insurance, a business organization requests a census from form provided by an insurance broker. The census form requires the business organization to provide information about each of its employees who will be covered by the group health insurance policy and the type of coverage desired.
The multiple carriers each generate a preliminary insurance quote for the group health insurance as well as provide information and details about the group health insurance plan such as coverage limits, deductibles, etc. The insurance broker sorts the preliminary insurance quotes and forwards them back to the business organization along with proprietary insurance forms required by the insurance carrier.
The business organization selects the insurance provider that is most appropriate, (i.e., typically the lowest cost) and requests that each employee fill out personal and medical information on the proprietary insurance forms. The completed proprietary insurance forms are returned to the broker. The insurance provider and/or the insurance broker reviews the proprietary insurance forms and returns forms to the business organization that include missing or incorrect information.
When all the proprietary insurance forms are correct, they are returned to the insurance broker who forwards them to an insurance underwriter for the selected insurance carrier. The insurance carrier provides a final cost estimate to the insurance broker who forwards it to the business organization. If the final cost estimate is too high or the terms of coverage are not what the business organization wants, this process is repeated for other group health insurance providers.
There are many problems associated with providing group health insurance to business organizations. One problem is that due to the continually rising costs of group health insurance, business organizations typically request new quotes from multiple insurance carriers for group health insurance each time a group health insurance policy expires.
Thus, it is desirable to solve some of the problems associated with providing group health insurance to business organizations.